NACHES, Wash. — The Yakima Health District has suspended the permit for the Caton Landfill in Naches due to repeated fire events authorities believe may pose a danger to public health.
YHD and the Washington State Department of Ecology have been working with landfill owners to remedy the situation since Nov. 2, when authorities were notified about a fire at the landfill. But after reports of another fire over the weekend, authorities took further action.
“They did suspend the permit because these fires are just a threat to public health,” said Emily Tasaka, communications manager for Ecology’s central regional office.
KAPP-KVEW reached out to Caton Landfill owners regarding the suspension of the landfill’s permit, but did not receive any further comments Tuesday.
Caton Landfill owner Randy Caton previously told KAPP-KVEW some of the reports by neighbors were due to them seeing steam coming off recently-dumped debris warm from traveling long distances and not fire.
“Anecdotally, with reports from the neighbors, it sounds like there is at least smoke or steam continuing,” Tasaka said. “We’re not sure which, but there definitely has been a fire since then, at least one fire.”
Tasaka said at this point, they’re not sure what’s causing the fires and they need samples to determine what is actually on fire and what kind of impact it may have on public health.
“We know that the facility accepts plastic, tires — these are allowed under their permit,” Tasaka said. “They can produce hazardous substances when they burn.”
Tasaka said if whatever is burning is releasing a hazardous substance into the air, it’s unlikely health effects will be immediately apparent.
“There’s a relatively low risk for acute exposure to people who are actually living nearby, but there still is a health threat to workers,” Tasaka said.
Tasaka said there have been previous issues at the site that have been reported to Ecology officials and that the fire is a “collective result of those problems.”
“These include uncovered waste and a 4-acre area of uncovered brush, which the permit requires to be covered to reduce fire hazard,” Tasaka said. “YHD and Ecology staff have also found waste outside the permitted area.”
Tasaka said there have been additional issues with inadequate or missing documentation.
“At this point, Ecology recommends creating a landfill gas monitoring plan to protect human health and the environment based on the history of fires here,” Tasaka said. “It’s now up to the facility to address all these problems, in addition to the fire, for Ecology and YHD to review.”
Tasaka said while the landfill has not been reporting the fires as required by their permit, they have been responsive in wanting to remedy the issues.
“It seems like they’re really interested in getting the issue fixed,” Tasaka said. “I think the problem here is that they need a little bit of consultant expertise to make sure that they address it.”
According to YHD, the landfill owners have taken initial steps to address the problem, including hiring a landfill fire consultant who will make an assessment of the property and develop a work plan based on what they find.
That work plan must demonstrate what’s causing the fires, what will be done to prevent those fires from reoccurring and what measures they’ll have in place to address any fires that may occur in the future.
“Right now, it’s up to Caton to make sure that they’re in compliance,” Tasaka said. “And that they work with Ecology and the health district to make sure that the smoke and the flames are out. And then from there, they can be eligible to be reopened.”
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